ENGL 102 | Spring 2017 | UC Merced | Prof. Humberto Garcia

English Status

The English language is like a quilt put together from languages all around the world, Latin, Greek, Spain etc. It’s become a like a safety blanket that everyone uses to secure their high status, If you know English you do well, you are considered sophisticated, especially if it’s not your first language. The English we use today has come together from a long history of literature and slang.

By the time Samuel Johnson had to write the dictionary he was overwhelmed by the various ways one word could be used. “I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity…..”.

“One-half of the committee maintain that it should be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me to be– which language is the best worth knowing?” Macaulay questions why education in India should be based on English or Arabic, and what it would stand for if such a system was established. The spread of the English language around world in way represents the colonial footprint left by the British Empire. What this meant for the Indians was being able reaching levels of knowledge and education that helps them with discoveries in Indian studies.

Now English has become universal, it helps the world’s politicians, scientists, and artists communicate. I don’t believe that there is a Standard English language. For example in London everyone speaks English but depending on which part of the city you are from it is spoken with a different accent. It is constantly changing, something that I’ve noticed is that the vernacular that today’s generation uses slowly starts to become permanent, words like “selfie” and “emoji” are now a part of Oxford dictionary. As the world has changed and modernized so has English.